So as I’ve mentioned, owing to being born around Halloween, I associate spooky things with a sense of childlike comfort. Skeletons and vampires are akin to getting attention and presents in my mind and so I love the undead unconditionally.
The Forsaken are far and away my favorite for reasons I’ve already elaborated on exhaustively. But my 2nd favorite are the vampirates of Luthor Harkin from the Warhammer franchise. Because seriously why do the undead haunt derelict mountain castles when you can just curse the tropics and spend eternity getting sloshed on blood rum cocktails and building armies of bloated, drowned sailors?
And it’s occurred to me the Forsaken also have an undead aristocrat who was driven insane in a dinosaur filled aztec inspired pyramid.
Seriously just make Derek Proudmoore WoW’s answer to Luthor Harkin?
First off undead pirates are demonstrably profitable;
Second off the character is currently such a blank slate that making him a wild eyed “pirate’s life for me” type is as sensible as anything else.
And thirdly, undead pirates are cool af and the Forsaken are absolutely the sort of people for whom Admiral and Privateer would be interchangeable words in Gutterspeak.
We’ve the ingredients for a cackling lunatic pirate captain character. And if I’ve to read about how he’s sad about becoming an unkillable war machine I’m going to flip a table. Make him a crazy eyed, presumably schizophrenic, alcoholic, sea shanty spitting wild man.
I dunno, I feel like it’s a bit late to suddenly establish him as a cackling lunatic when he hasn’t shown any signs of it up to now. You’d think that kind of thing would be obvious immediately upon becoming raised.
Not opposed to having a character of that type, but I think making a new character would be a better solution than trying to retrofit Derek.
Sounds cool but this is so unlike everything we’ve seen of him that at this point it’d probably be more convenient to create a brand new character to fill that slot and send Poor Old Derek back to the bottom of the Great Sea
Yeah, I have to agree with what others have said here.
I’m all for spooky Dread Admiral Derek Proudmoore ( would also like to see him as go- to for the Fogsail Freebooters and firmly establish them in the horde ) but cackling lunatic is just not what he is and how we have seen him so far. It would be virtually replacing one character with a totally different one and feel forced imho.
Yes, but if he was the kind of character you are suggesting, he wouldn’t have stayed this quiet for this long.
I’d have a problem with it. I get annoyed when characters get so obviously rewritten. It breaks my immersion.
As a compromise, maybe something could happen to him to turn him into this character. Like, somehow the soul of the actual Derek Proudmoore gets sent to the afterlife and his body is taken over by the ghost of an insane pirate. This would have the added benefit of removing a member of the Proudmoore family from the Horde.
Ugh, don’t remind me about what a lore abomination he already is …
Are you opposed to the idea of a catalyst event to give him a changed personality? The soul-swap was just an idea I tossed out off the top of my head; it doesn’t have to be that specifically.
I just think it’s unnecessary. The character outright doesnt have a personality yet beyond being angry about being tortured. But then he stared at Calia’s décolletage long enough to chill about that.
And thats where we left the character. Having him come out of his shell after hanging out with the Forsaken for a bit makes as much sense as anything else.
I do not think Derek is permanently a ruined wreck and a shame of a blight on the Horde - but he is now. I am not a fan of throwing more big Alliance names into the Forsaken and Horde, and having them take the spotlight. I am not a fan of Derek or Calia or “the pallid lady” thing.
But if that is the road Blizz is going down, I am not closing off any possible improvements. He needs some development, in any direction.
I think this is where my issue lies.
I am not familiar with Derek when he was alive. I know he was a fortunate son, and a naval officer. Not exactly Jack Sparrow or Barbossa.
One could say Undeath changed him… but right now, he seems to be an emotional wreck hiding under Calia’s skirt. For him to just appear one day with the demeanor you suggest is quite a difference.
Like, maybe if he got captured and forced into Helya’s fleet for a decade, and we freed him, he might have a whole different attitude.
I think Derek needs some development. But I think the Character you are looking for is better off being created as a new Character, or at the end of many many many travails for the newly Undead Derek at sea, away from Calia and Jaina.
I guess I’ve just accepted they don’t do character arcs in this setting. Nor should they, really. The hero characters arent actually all that compelling and to my thinking never really were, they were just above average for the kiddy pool of narrative depth that is MMO and RTS characters.
Make them fun archtypes then use them as basicslly set dressing. We’ve seen what happens when they try to do a character study.
What if he works with one of Dread Admirals for a while, and before long, he gets comfortable at sea again, commanding people and while not being so, well afraid of his shadow as he is right now.
There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on Derek, but I’m sure they could wipe his alliance ties away if they wanted too
I mean don’t get me wrong I found the Sylanas novel entertaining in a Mystery Science 3000 kinda way. But it’s conviced me the hero characters need to be what they were in the RTS and early WoW days.
Which is to say basically props with loud personalities that occasionally turn up to raise the stakes or give you some super special mission.
Sure - that is character development that can help explain a dramatic change of character. As I said, I would not close the door to improvements, but I would prefer they have some set up and lore based logic. Instead of just : “today, Anduin is a blood thirsty gunslinger cowboy and Sylvanas is a wise cracking astronaut.”
Maybe Derek runs into old friends who were raised as Forsaken long ago, and he goes on sea voyages with them. Engrossing himself in Forsaken seafaring culture, and becoming more of what the OP discussed - over time.
Harkon-wannabe Derek isn’t going to happen in the Cuddle Kingdom of Undead Goodbois that Calia’s forsaken will be written as. Belmont snark will be as problematic as the faction is allowed to be.
I know the Worgen got pretty thoroughly Bob Barker’d but let’s be real here; Blizz never seemed to want them.
Meanwhile Calia’s debut was so based it made Lorderbros rage quit because they had to dress up like a deader and actively reclaim Lordaeron for the Forsaken.
Making Lux Vult nerds delete their account is a hell of a good start if you ask me.
